Updates to urlbar design, please share your feedback

[daleharvey]

We are in the process of landing some updates to the urlbar and enabling them on nightly for testing and happy to hear some feedback. These changes followed on from a lot of the feedback that was generated with our previous urlbar update (codenamed ScotchBonnet) and address some (not all) of the tradeoffs and concerns as well as bring some general improvements. 

The main change being that the search button is shown consistently now, it no longer appears and disappears when the user types. This makes switching engines to perform a search always accessible and makes it easier to see and install new custom search engines from the sites you visit.

The "search mode" UI is also streamlined, switching between different engines is now always one click away, you no longer need to close the current search mode to pick a new one. 

The urlbar is also clearer about what is about to happen, instead of showing your default search engine logo after typing a url, the urlbar icon now tells you if you are about to search or visit a url.

As mentioned users feedback was pivotal in making these changes so it is always useful to hear what works and doesn't work for your particular workflow. Thanks!

(the patch to enable this landed earlier and so this should be enabled by default in tomorrows nightly, otherwise browser.urlbar.unifiedSearchButton.always and browser.urlbar.unifiedSearchButton.historyInSearchMode are the prefs to preview it).

[grundt]

I actually prefer the current behavior (browser.urlbar.unifiedSearchButton.always = false), which is where the 'search provider' dropdown is conditionally displayed:

1. displayed - when the urlbar is empty or when it contains a search query
2. not displayed - when the urlbar contains a url

On the other hand, if it's going to be unconditionally displayed, then how about separating the 'search providers' from the urlbar entirely.  That would give users the flexibility to place it where they want it (either before -or- after the urlbar, -or- to remove it from the toolbar entirely).

I'm not a fan of this new practice of polluting the urlbar with items (search, permissions, reader view, bookmark, pwa) that can't be controlled with the "Customize Toolbar" feature.

[daleharvey]

Yeh there will always be preferences one way or the other, however we have found and heard the inconsistency in the button being displayed to very confusing for users and gets in the way of accessing things they want to.

Being customisable is a valid consideration though, its harder for things inside the urlbar than general toolbar items but worth thinking about how it can be done. Thanks.

[andjsch]

I gave this a quick try and really dislike it. It feels out of place next to the current URL. In case this ships, it should definitely be behind a flag so people can enable it if they want to. But it would be one of the first things I'd disable if it was on by default in its current form.

I think I'd like it more if it was more like in Chrome on Android. Once I click the address bar, it turns into a search bar, but with the option to edit the current URL or copy it. Still, I'd never like to see the search pill/button permanently in my address bar.